Author's Note:

Chapter fifty already :O It flew by so fast.

I hope you're all still enjoying the story :) I'm definitely still excited to share it all with you and I'm grateful for your continuous readership and all the comments and kudos and votes :3

A little progress update, since we're already here :) I have finished chapter 100 recently and continue to write on. There's a lot more to look forward to. Lots of (hopefully) exciting plotlines and story developments. I hope you'll enjoy the journey.

But for now, enjoy the culmination of the Winterhold arc, spanning over the next few chapters. I hope you'll like how it turned out :3

Chapter L – Like the Life You're Living

If they had ever wondered whether a dragon could become undead, now they had their answer.

Among the regular skeletons, there was one of a dragon. The entrance hall was massive – it had to be, to house this beast. Its giant frame rattled menacingly with every movement and it fastened its… eye sockets on them instantly when they entered the large doors.

"What in the Void is that?!" Darren exclaimed and he took a step back towards the doors.

The Psijic monk spoke of evil being held inside Labyrinthian. Was this what he meant?

The dragon didn't leave them much time to ponder. It started to move on its skeletal claws towards them menacingly and the skeletons around took notice as well. All of them started to weave their hands instantly – they were obviously mages.

Several icy spikes flew through the air straight towards their closest target – Bishop. He quickly rolled out of the way from them before they could reach him while Aeyrin charged forward towards the dragon. Darren only pressed himself against the door, likely hoping that none of their enemies would take notice of him.

"YOL TOOR!"

Aeyrin's Shout echoed throughout the chamber before the dragon even managed to attack. She wasn't sure what to expect from it, whether it was actually alive, whether it had a soul and whether it could Shout, but there was one thing that she knew. Any bones would crack under her fire.

The dragon roared in pain while two of the skeletons ended up dead on the ground with cracked skulls and rib-bones from the force of Bishop's arrows. He hated fighting skeletons – his arrows just flew through the bones harmlessly so often when those things moved. That was one enemy where Aeyrin's mace was invaluable. Too bad she was busy with the dragon.

She started to smash her mace into whatever giant bone she could find. The fiery enchantment only helped her along while the dragon merely thrashed and attempted to snap its jaw at her or to swat her with its limbs.

It didn't Shout at all. Perhaps it couldn't. That was a good sign, wasn't it?

Bishop was steadily working on getting rid of the skeletons, but it was slow going. All of them were shooting their ice spells at him and, half of the time, he had to constantly dodge them before he could attempt to shoot again.

The dragon swatted its claw at Aeyrin, just as she almost managed to hit it again. It was fast for a corpse. She evaded the claw, but when she did, the beast quickly reacted by smacking its other claw against her with a lot of force, sending her flying across the chamber with her armor clattering loudly.

The monster turned its head to her and then she saw it – the translucent swirl forming at the back of its throat.

Dammit, she really thought that it couldn't Shout!

"FUS RO DAH!"

"FEIM!"

She reacted quickly and the invisible force of the dragon's Shout hit one of the nearby skeletons instead. It practically burst as all its bones flew into different directions.

The dragon seemed particularly peeved at her defense and it looked like it instantly knew what she had done. It knew that it couldn't hurt her now but that only meant that it turned its attention towards Bishop. Darren may as well have been invisible, pressed back against the large doors.

The dragon swatted at Bishop but he was too quick and jumped out of the way. The beast seemed to lose its patience soon enough and it prepared for another Shout, this time with a pale blue light forming at its throat. Or… where its throat would normally be.

Bishop didn't manage to react fast enough this time and he could feel bits of frost cover him, but before the full force of the Shout hit him, it got intercepted.

"WULD!"

Aeyrin appeared in front of him within a second with her palm raised and a spell forming in it. Her ward covered them from the Shout, surprisingly enough, but her hand began wavering instantly while the dragon hurled frost onto them. She obviously still couldn't keep the wards up for long.

Bishop kneeled behind her and he aimed his bow quickly before she could lose the spell. He shot at the dragon's head, straight into the crux of its jaw. The arrow hit perfectly, lodging itself in the bone and interrupting the steady Shout.

Aeyrin lunged forth right after that, smashing her mace over the dragon's head.

"YOL TOOR!"

That was the last straw. The dragon's dried and fragile bones cracked in several places and the entire skeleton crumbled to the ground at last.

Aeyrin turned around instantly just as Bishop straightened back up. She lunged herself into his embrace, waiting with bated breath for what was to come. Would it be different because the dragon had no body? It was the Shouts that affected her, right? Not the form of the dragon. There was nothing to worry about; it was just the regular frost breath. She had survived that one many times before. It didn't matter that she had passed out during her last absorption, right?

"Sweetness, nothing's happening." She felt Bishop squeeze her briefly before he planted a quick kiss to the top of her head. Before she could realize what he said, she was pushed away from his embrace. Bishop dropped down to one knee again and he drew his bow.

Only now she looked around the chamber.

The dragon skeleton was there, unmoving, but there was no light, no soul. That was a relief. She completely forgot about the skeleton mages, however. There were three of them left and, fortunately they were pretty far away from them, likely to avoid the dragon's range, but they were approaching steadily again.

Bishop shot one of the skeletons in the head instantly and the second one followed before she could rile herself up. It wasn't even worth it to make any effort to reach the last one. When they were this far, Bishop had no problem felling them in one shot.

Instead, Aeyrin looked back towards Darren. He was still by the front doors, shuffling his feet somewhat nervously as he watched Bishop dispose of the last skeleton. He didn't even try to get involved in the battle, but that was hardly surprising after the last fiasco. He was rather different from the other apprentices that they'd interacted with before, however. J'zargo and Brelyna were so eager to show off their magical prowess and their ideas. Then again, Darren was generally different from everyone in every way.

The chamber was finally empty and they all met in the center of it.

"It didn't have a soul," Aeyrin scowled as she still looked over at the dragon. She was kind of worried that it would light up at any second.

"You said that the undead don't have souls. Not the original ones anyway," Bishop shrugged. If the undead didn't have a black soul, why would the dragon have a dragon soul?

"Yes… I guess. But… I just… it means that…"

"That whatever power is here managed to animate a dragon and probably scores of other undead," Darren finished her thought with creased brows. The monk did say that there was evil there.

Before they could continue their discussion, however, a distant voice interrupted them. It was hard to hear from afar, but it was definitely coming from further in, past the massive chamber. They only exchanged brief looks before they rushed forwards to see the source of the sound.

"It's too late. There isn't enough of him left to go back in after."

"Gods, what have we done?"

"We can't go back. Might as well go forward. We can still do this."

The three of them stopped when they finally saw the source of the voices in the narrow hallway past the massive chamber. Five ghosts were standing there and talking somewhat casually. They didn't react to their presence at all.

"Can you imagine the looks on their faces when we come back? With enchanted weapons, tomes of ancient knowledge or Shalidor's secrets themselves. Who knows what we could find?!" The Dunmer ghost let out a sigh of barely subdued excitement.

"Savos," Darren gasped instantly when he saw the ghost.

"That's the Arch-Mage? What's his ghost doing here?" Bishop stared at the translucent beings in confusion. Weren't ghosts usually where the people fell? Or with their remains at least? He didn't really understand this shit, but that was what his experiences with ghosts had always suggested.

"These aren't ghosts." Just as the words left Darren's mouth, the five figures disappeared into thin air, as if they were never there. "Apparitions. Glimpses of the past. This place… it must be practically seeping with necromantic magic to be doing all of this. Apparitions like these only appear when the events they portray change the fundamental powers of the place. Savos must have… done something here."

"Like bringing in the Staff? You said that he was so sure that it was in Skyrim. How else could he have known?" Aeyrin scowled. Maybe Savos was the one to hide and seal it here in the first place.

"Maybe. I… I don't know," Darren shrugged his shoulders with a somewhat disturbed look on his face. His next words came out quietly – he was mostly talking to himself: "Why wouldn't he tell me?"

"We're not gonna find out by standing around. Let's just get this over with," Bishop nodded resolutely. This had certainly been a long time coming. He couldn't wait until they got this shit-show over with. The constant knowledge of what was happening at the College rattled him even more than Darren's presence.

The apparitions were gone for good, it seemed, so they continued onwards, deeper into the ruins.

…

Darren was right about the 'necromantic powers', or whatever he had been talking about. Labyrinthian was crawling with draugr and skeletons. Most of them seemed to know some spells and others even knew Shouts. They've theorized that the number of mages among the undead was due to the connection of this place to that… Shalidor person. Maybe the skeletons were mostly dead mage adventurers and scholars like Savos who had tried to plunder the ruins before.

The presence of the Shouting draugr was not much of a surprise anymore, but still, they seemed to be rather numerous there. Perhaps there was an abnormally large dragon cult there in the past.

Whether their theories were correct or not didn't matter much though – there was only one thing that was actually important about all of this. The battles were brutal. It was fortunate that Darren knew how to ward against any stray spells aimed at him because Bishop and Aeyrin had their hands full trying to save their own skins most of the time.

After a while, they needed to take a break to, at least, sit down for a while and let tired bodies rest. They've chosen one of the narrow hallways where they could see any enemy approaching long before it could reach them and they've settled on the ground briefly to take a breath.

No longer than a minute had passed, however, and they were interrupted yet again, but this time, not by an undead enemy.

"Have you returned, my old friend?"

A strangely haunting voice suddenly carried throughout the hallway, sending shivers down their spines. They all started to look around frantically, but there was nobody there, not even the apparitions.

Something was talking to them, watching them. Something powerful.

"Do you truly seek to finish that which you could not?" the voice mocked. What was it talking about? "Or have you come to seal what you fear yet again, Aren?"

"Aren?!" Darren gasped as he continued to look around the hallway helplessly for the source of the voice.

"It's not here. It can't see us. It thinks that Aren is back," Bishop scowled. There was no point in trying to find the source of the voice. It was obviously nowhere near them. But what was more unsettling was that it knew that they were there. Could it feel their presence? How?

"We need to go! We need to find out what… what this is," Darren suddenly sprung to his feet. It was easy for him to rush them onwards – he didn't do much in the battles.

Bishop and Aeyrin lifted themselves off the ground somewhat lazily after him.

It was probably for the best to handle this quickly.

Before they could go much further, however, the familiar apparitions materialized again at the end of the hallway. There were four of them now, Savos Aren and three more of his mage companions from his early years at the College.

"Come on, we can't stop now. We have to keep moving!" Aren's apparition stopped by the door leading further into the ruins as it briefly looked back to its companions.

"Where's Elvali? She was right behind me," another apparition looked around in despair.

"Dead. Something grabbed her from behind. Gone before I could do anything," another one sighed.

"This is insanity. We never should've come here," an Argonian apparition shivered once it finally reached the group by the door.

"You're right. This is all my fault. Should we turn around, head back?" the second one looked around nervously. A few uncertain murmurs followed from the group.

"Going back would be the end of all of us. We keep pushing forward, and we'll make it. We will!" Savos encouraged them somewhat impatiently. He seemed so adamant about continuing, despite their losses. Did he know what was inside? Aeyrin had suspected before that it was Aren who brought the Staff into the ruins but… it didn't look like it. He didn't carry any staff. He would not be able to hide it, right? Then what was this expedition about?

"Come on, you can make it. Let's go," another apparition nodded resolutely before they all walked straight through the door, disappearing from sight.

When Bishop opened the door, the apparitions were gone.

But the undead certainly weren't.

…

"You… you are not Aren, are you?" the booming malicious voice echoed through the chambers as they struggled in the midst of battle.

Darren was desperately trying to keep up the pace by holding up a ward whenever the draugr concentrating on him sent an icy spike flying towards the mage. There was no one to help him. Aeyrin was surrounded by undead and Bishop was standing back, shooting them systematically to help her out. It must have become apparent to Darren after all these battles that Bishop would always be first concerned about Aeyrin before he would even entertain the idea of helping him out of a tough spot.

They all tried to ignore the voice and concentrate on the battle, but that thing was making it harder and harder.

"I can sense it. You are different. The power of Magnus. I can feel it in you, mage," it rumbled through the area. It could obviously feel Darren. Again, it was the Eye that made it that way. Did that thing even know how many people had invaded this dungeon or did it just sense the signature of the Eye?

"It's so… faint. You are weak, mage. Weaker than Aren was. Did he send you here? He sent you to your death. You cannot finish what he started. Or did he send you here to renew my binds? I expect that you cannot even do that," the voice chuckled meanly.

'Binds?' What did it mean? Was it imprisoned?

"I'll show you, monster! You have no idea what I have in store for you!" Darren snarled at nothing in particular, but it broke his concentration and he barely managed to put up another ward before another spike shot at him.

His outburst was a little startling. He was prone to bravado often, but not usually in the midst of battle. For the first time then, Aeyrin and Bishop started to wonder.

Did he actually know what that thing was talking about?

…

"That fucker is starting to get annoying," Bishop grumbled as he wiped off the sweat from his brow when the battle was finally over.

"Not for long," Darren growled angrily. The creature's last words seemed to have gotten him into a fiercely angry mood. It reminded them of his anger fits back at the College.

"Darren, do you… do you know what that thing is?" Aeyrin tried to broach the subject. He certainly switched quickly from his confusion to determination.

"Does it matter? Aren was here to end it. So we end it," he nodded resolutely. "Now what's the hold-up? Let's go!"

Darren started practically stomping forward while Bishop and Aeyrin shared a somewhat concerned look. Not only did they have plenty of bad experiences with people rushing through dangerous places with fire in their eyes, in no small part because of Aeyrin, but they also got more and more confused about how they remained the only ones questioning what the voice was saying.

Darren either didn't care about the taunts anymore, or… he knew what they were referring to.

…

For a long time, the routine was the same.

Aeyrin and Bishop were getting more and more exhausted from the scores of undead thrown at them. There was practically a whole army in there. They weren't sure if they should attribute it to the scope of the barrow, or to the ability of whatever was raising these corpses. It was different than in the other dungeons – there were the usual draugr that rose from their resting places, but there were also many of them surrounded by faint purple glow, and they turned to ash upon death. They were temporarily animated – it was clear now. There was a force waking the sleepers and there was one raising those that wouldn't wake. Perhaps it was the same force.

Darren was getting continuously taunted by the booming voice about his pathetic lack of power and it seemed like he was more than eager to take the bait. He was seething and he constantly threw threats right back at that voice.

It surely couldn't hear him. It didn't even know that Bishop and Aeyrin were there too, did it? It certainly never addressed them.

"My binds are dying. I will be free soon and you cannot stop me," the voice chuckled just as they finally disposed of the last draugr in a particularly large chamber.

There it went again about the 'binds'. This was really getting more and more convoluted.

"We'll see about that!" Darren yelled at the ceiling. The voice didn't answer. It never answered.

"What does it mean 'binds'? Did Aren talk about any of this?" Aeyrin tried to prod Darren again for an answer but he acted as if he didn't even hear her.

"Come on already!" he yelled at the two of them.

There was a brief tense moment when Bishop and Aeyrin considered putting him in his place, each in their own respective manners, of course, but the desire to get this over with was stronger than that. They were so exhausted and tired of Darren at the same time. His angry fits at that voice did not help that one bit.

They didn't make it much further, however, before the familiar apparitions stopped them in their tracks. This time, Darren rushed straight towards the ethereal form of Savos Aren and he started to study him, as if he was trying to discern something from his face.

"We shouldn't have left her there to die!" one of the apparitions screamed in anger as the three of them stood in a small circle. Only three now… just like them.

"What else could we do? Stay there and die with her? She refused to go on, we didn't have a choice!" Savos retorted with an exasperated shake of his head.

"Aye. Aye," the third apparition sighed mournfully. "This is it, you know? We're almost there. Can you feel it?"

"We're not going to make it, are we?" the second one let out a strained sigh with palpable fear in its voice.

"We will. We stay together, no matter what. Agreed?" the third apparition gently placed its hand on the other's shoulder.

"Agreed. We all stay together," Aren confirmed, but he wasn't even in their little circle anymore – he had stepped forward a long time ago with palpable eagerness and impatience.

The apparitions disappeared and all their eyes fastened on the hallway ahead.

Whatever was in there, whatever had been talking to them, it was close.

…

They stopped in front of the large door leading further in.

Everyone was on edge, but the second they had a moment to breathe before whatever was awaiting them, Aeyrin cut it short quickly.

"Bish, I can hear a Wall," she threw a concerned look over at the door.

Darren looked at her as if she was insane, but Bishop didn't waste a second before he started to push against the door. Respite would have to wait even longer, it seemed.

"Shit… alright. Let's do this," he nodded determinedly before he swung the door open.

Aeyrin didn't pay any attention to her surroundings and she instantly rushed towards the source of the drumming. There was no time to waste – she needed to be ready for a tough battle without a doubt. Bishop would hold back whatever enemy was there in the meantime.

She saw so many lights so fast that it got confusing. It usually didn't get this bad this fast, but she didn't have the time to ponder on it. She only followed the sound in a frantic sprint before she finally reached her goal.

KLO

She let out a sigh of relief when the drumming dulled and the lights stopped blinding her eyes.

When she finally recollected herself, she quickly turned around to make sense of her surroundings, only to be stopped short by a startling sight.

There was no battle and no hordes of undead.

There was a platform right in front of her with a creature atop – a dragon priest with a metal mask on its face. But this one was surrounded by a pale-blue sphere of light. It wasn't moving and, from the sphere, she could see two streams of magical energy flowing towards two other narrow platforms – one on each side above where Aeyrin stood. There were two very familiar mages there, kneeling on the platforms, each enveloped in a cloak of the same pale-blue light.

'My binds are dying.'

The creature's words echoed in her head. There were people – mages, Aren's companions, holding the creature bound in its strange prison. And only then she noticed the staff in the creature's hands.

She'd never seen any staff like it – it was hard to see its entirety, but there was one prominent element on it which was impossible to miss. The magical crystal on its tip was practically a miniature replica of the Eye of Magnus.

This was it. This was what they needed. But the creature held it in its fading prison.

This was what Aren sealed here. But did he seal the Staff, or the dragon priest?

It took her a while to notice Bishop and Darren standing nearby. They were both staring at the scene just like she was a minute ago.

There was a sudden startling mild flash of light as an apparition appeared again, right in front of the creature's spherical barrier. It was Aren. He knelt down by the sphere to examine it, before he turned back towards the two motionless mages on the platforms.

"I'm sorry, friends," his voice came out hoarse and strained. "I'm so sorry! I have no choice! It is the only way to make sure that this monster never escapes! I promise you, I'll make sure of it. I'll seal this whole place away."

The apparition stood there in mournful regret for a while before he disappeared again.

The chamber was now eerily quiet. Nothing was happening and nothing was attacking them. So after they had finally shared an uncertain look, they walked together atop the space in front of the narrow platforms to look closer at the bound mages.

"You are here, mage. I can sense your presence," the voice boomed suddenly throughout the chamber.

'Sense'? So it couldn't even see them?

"You are not strong enough to bind me here. Aren's sacrifices will die soon and I will be free and your world will be doomed," the voice chuckled menacingly, making Darren's face twist in anger again.

They needed to figure out how to deal with this. They needed the Staff and they needed to get to the creature. Aeyrin stepped closer to one of the mages and touched him lightly. The magic around him was cold, but not cold as if he was covered in frost. It was strangely… unnatural.

"Alright, let's end this," Darren let out a determined sigh. She walked back towards him and Bishop and they both looked at the mage expectantly as his eyes roamed around the chamber.

"I know what to do," Darren gave them a brief reassuring nod before he started to give out instructions with surprising assertiveness. "Each of you, get behind one of the mages and prepare to kill them. They are practically dead anyway. I… I will handle the rest," he gulped somewhat nervously at his last words.

Bishop and Aeyrin shared another look that turned into a deep knowing scowl.

It all made sense now, all that had been happening – the voice, talking about that dying prison, Darren's constant taunts that he would 'show the creature', that he would foil its plans. He knew about Aren's expedition, he knew what the Arch-Mage had done here. They didn't know how long this plan of his had been going on, whether he knew from the start, but it didn't matter.

He was here to ensure that Aren's efforts didn't die with him.

He was here to bind them to keep the creature in.

Perhaps he had a plan to get the Staff in the process and save the College – that was what he wanted, wasn't it? To prove himself to them, to have the College at his feet. It was exactly the same when he saw the Eye – he was willing to kill them just so he could claim the glory of that discovery.

Was he making up that Psijic monk too? He may have pretended to speak to him after Mzulft to get Aren's amulet because he already knew about it, and the same thing with the Oculory. He may have known about everything and just pretended to go jump through these hoops to make it inconspicuous.

Well he would not get away with this! They weren't going to remain sealed here until the end of their days to keep some dragon priest contained!

Bishop drew his sword quickly and Darren didn't even flinch. He must have assumed that Bishop would go straight for one of the mages, but he didn't.

Instead, he pointed his sword right at Darren's throat.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" Darren's eyes went wide when he realized what had happened and he started at Bishop in shock. His eyes went briefly to Aeyrin, but she didn't do anything to stop Bishop, only throwing the mage a hateful scowl. "What is this? Is something controlling you or…"

"Shut up! Down!" Bishop snarled at him and he pressed the tip of his blade closer to Darren's throat, sending a mild shock into his body.

Darren started to shake in palpable fear, but he could obviously think of nothing else to do but to obey. He slowly lowered himself to his knees with an utterly confused expression while Bishop's blade followed him, still pressed against his neck, taunting him with mild jolts of lightning.

"Hands behind your head! Don't you fucking dare and try to cast a spell!" Bishop growled. He had half-a-mind to put him down right then and there like the traitorous dog that he was, but he also wanted to see him fumble for some pathetic excuse.

"I don't… what are you doing?! Why are you doing this?!" Darren cried out desperately, but he still placed his hands slowly on the back of his head. They were perceptibly shaky all through the motion. All that anger, all that fire, it seemed to evaporate in an instant and it was replaced by desperation.

He knew that he was beaten. And now he was, without a doubt, thinking of a way to get out of this.

"What do you want? You damned glory or some shit like that? Just… fine! Just… leave me alone! Why can't everyone just leave me alone already?!" he voice shook frantically and his eyes turned towards the ground. That was a… strange thing to say.

"What are you talking about? Do you think we're stupid?!" Aeyrin gritted her teeth. "We can see what you were planning! You wanted to seal us here instead of them!"

"What? No! What? Why would I do that? I didn't want to do that!" Darren quickly shook his head.

"Oh please! All that shit you spewed at that thing, about 'showing it', about 'putting it in its place'! And now you just conveniently order us to kill those mages while you 'handle the rest'?!" Bishop scoffed at him. "Guess your 'meat-shields' aren't as fucking daft as you thought."

"I… I didn't! That's not what I…" Darren's eyes met Bishop's for a second with a shocked realization. "That's not what I was doing! I was just… it made me angry! Just… of course you would think that! Why would anyone ever think anything but the worst about me?!" he gritted his teeth and turned his eyes back down to the ground.

"Just like the rest of them! I can't do anything right, is that it?" Darren wasn't looking at them anymore, he stared stubbornly into the ground as desperation seeped from his voice. "I'm not a fucking 'magical protégé' like that stupid cat! I'm not a 'creative genius' like fucking Brelyna, no matter how much damage she does! No! I can't fight, I'm 'not powerful enough' to do what Aren wanted and to end this creature, so I just have to be some evil bitter idiot that tries to bind people here for eternity, right?! Why didn't I see this coming? Why would you treat me any differently than everyone else does?!"

This was… a lot more convincing than they had expected.

"W-well… it's not like you didn't give us a reason to! The first day we met you tried to attack us without a second thought! You didn't seem that concerned about people's lives then!" Aeyrin scowled at him.

"What?! No! I didn't! I just… I just tried to cast a fear spell on you! It was harmless! I just… why wouldn't I? What did you expect me to do?! Just let you mock me like everyone else already does?!" Darren shook his head, still staring stubbornly at the ground. His voice quivered tellingly, making them both feel even more uncomfortably convinced of his genuineness.

"You tried to kill us in Saarthal!" Bishop barked at him. He had said it himself back then – he wanted to kill them and claim that the Eye was his discovery. That was pretty fucking telling.

"No! No… I… didn't! How would I even do that?! Did you not see me out there?!" Darren gestured vaguely towards the door leading back into the dungeon. He hadn't really killed anything throughout their adventure. "I just… I was gonna try to use a charm spell… to make… to make you tell them that I saved you from that… that draugr mage." He flinched a little when another shock from Bishop's sword went through his body. He let out a barely audible sniffle after that, but he still didn't move from the ground or look up at them.

"Why?!" Aeyrin shook her head at him incredulously.

"Why do you think?! So that they could finally take me seriously?! So that they could finally stop mocking the fucking Breton who can't do magic?! So that the College can at least say that I did something so that my family doesn't disown their 'failed son'?! They sent me here among the Nords, away from High Rock, so that I could at least excel here, with the magically inept, but even fucking Onmund is a better mage than me. What else could I do?! And now? You think that they take me seriously now? If Aren didn't believe me about the monk, I would have been locked in some room and experimented on by Colette for 'disease of the mind'! And even… even when he believed me, even this one thing that I could do to help the College, they all laugh. Because it was a fucking accident!" Darren wasn't holding onto his pride anymore by any means. Tears streamed down his face as he stared into the ground, shaking every now and then, either from the mild shocks or from his current state of mind.

Bishop looked at Aeyrin uncertainly while she stared at Darren with a somewhat guilty expression.

That was… pretty fucking convincing. And they didn't really help all this by constantly yelling at him in combat or shoving him aside when he tried to help. Bishop didn't really think that he could ever feel sorry for someone like him. Sure, it was Darren's own fault for conforming to his idiotic family and trying to appease them instead of forging his own path, but still. This display was making him feel weirdly guilty.

"Why… why did you tell us to kill the mages?" Aeyrin asked with a somewhat shaky voice.

"I had a plan! I could have done this! At least I could have done this and… and I could finish what Aren wanted. I could have made him proud… even if… whatever. I just… killing them would break the barrier. I wanted to go to that thing and… try to take the Staff before it could attack. We need to kill it. But the Staff is too powerful."

That… wasn't a bad plan, actually. It would have been better if Aeyrin did this, however – unlike her, Darren had no means of defending himself against the dragon priest and the Staff if he failed. Still… the plan was pretty solid, considering.

Bishop lowered his sword from Darren's neck and the mage let out a somewhat shocked gasp.

"Get up," Bishop commanded. It was no longer an angry order like before, though. His voice was somewhat defeated.

Darren stood up shakily and he quickly wiped his face with the sleeve of his robes. "We need the Staff. We can't just… seal it again," he gave the two of them an uncertain expression, as if he was still expecting them to try to kill him.

"Agreed. But we need to be careful about this," Aeyrin nodded at him with a weak encouraging smile. It was somewhat heartbreaking to make him stand on the sidelines after that story, but it was the safest option. What else could they do? "If the dragon priest is too fast, we can't risk getting caught off guard. It… it would be best if you and Bishop killed the mages while…"

"Right…" Darren lowered his head before she could finish the thought. He looked nerve-rackingly crestfallen, but he didn't try to dissuade her. He knew that she was right.

An uncomfortable silence loomed over them for a while before Aeyrin gave the two of them a determined nod and moved to get back to the other platform near the draugr.

Bishop handed Darren his hunting knife, since the mage didn't have any weapons at all, and they both moved behind the two mages respectively. Aeyrin positioned herself as close to the barrier as she could. She tried to move her arm through it, but that thing was solid. She had to wait until the mages died. And they probably needed to die at the same time – they couldn't risk the barrier weakening enough so that the draugr would manage to break through and catch them off guard.

When she signaled them, Bishop and Darren both pressed their blades into the mages' necks and then slit their throats in one fluid motion.

The barrier flickered briefly, and a second later, it disappeared completely. The draugr moved subtly, but before it could do anything else, Aeyrin charged at it, smashing into its bony body.

The draugr staggered in the air and she quickly reached for the Staff. She managed to yank it from the creature's bony fingers and with the Staff in hand, she didn't wait any longer to attack.

"KRII!"

The dragon priest got instantly enveloped in a red aura and only a few moments later, an arrow swished through the air, right into its torso. Bishop was originally aiming at its head, but it was already moving pretty fast.

The dragon priest's hands lit up with fire and a large fireball promptly flew towards Bishop.

He rolled himself out of the way, but the platform was too narrow. He instantly plummeted down to the ground below and landed with a loud 'thud'. At least it wasn't too high, but his bow fell from his hand at the impact.

The creature was already readying to cast another spell at him, but Aeyrin intercepted it with a powerful swing of her mace into its head. She still had to hold the Staff with her other hand and she didn't dare to use it, not knowing its effects, but she could make do with one hand only.

The draugr let out a strangely deep shriek, but it was still whole. She lunged again, smashing her mace once more into it, this time in its torso, making it fly some distance to the side as her mace connected with its spine and sent another wave of flames against its ancient bones.

"KRII LUN AUS!" a loud sound escaped the creature's mouth and suddenly, Aeyrin could feel her body tightening. Her bones were shaking. She felt so… fragile, as if she could crumble at any second. Her vision was assaulted with an oddly red hue and it was hard to concentrate on anything.

Was this how her red aura Shout felt? It was frightening. She felt like any wrong movement would make her spine give out and break.

"FUS-"

She could hear the Shout in the creature's voice, but before she could even brace herself for the impact, there was a sudden sound of rattling bones.

She concentrated her eyes as hard as she could to see what happened. The shape of the draugr was no longer there and, instead, she could vaguely see a strange form on the platform where the priest had been just a second ago.

It seemed like a long time had passed while she concentrated on standing straight without crumbling. After a while, she could suddenly feel an enormous pressure on her left shoulder. Her legs threatened to give out instantly.

"Princess?" the voice echoed by her head.

"Don't touch me!" she yelled when she finally figured out what the pressure was – Bishop attempted to place his hand on her comfortingly, but it didn't help, considering the state that she was in.

The pressure eased immediately as his hand left her. She could hear more voices around when she closed her eyes to concentrate again at standing firmly on the ground.

"What's wrong with her?"

"A Shout. It will pass."

She wished it would. It was taking so long. She really thought that she would crumble at any second.

When the strange feeling finally eased after a long time, her eyes went straight to the shape on the platform. There was a pile of ash there with the metal mask right atop it, along with a half-burned remains of Bishop's arrow.

"Better?" she heard Bishop's voice from behind her back. She turned around to both men looking at her – Bishop with concern and Darren with both confusion and… strange reverence. It took a while for her to figure out that Darren's awed look wasn't directed at her but at the Staff in her hand.

"It's over," Darren let out a sigh of relief.

"Not yet. But we can stop the Eye now," Aeyrin smiled at him. She looked at the Staff in her grip curiously before she reached out to offer it to Darren.

It was only right that he should be the one to finish this.

This was his journey after all.